
Posted by Matt Rooney On November 06, 2015 7 Comments
By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
If you STILL don’t know or understand why New Jersey is almost irreparably screwed up, and a strengthened Democrat legislative majority is only going to make it worse, all you need to do is check out this quote from a celebratory SpeakerVince Prieto over on NJ.com.
He’s moving full-steam-ahead on the gas tax hike after Tuesday’s big win and isn’t ready to listen to any proposals that don’t raise taxes:
You can’t have something that’s revenue neutral,” Prieto said. “How are you going to fix the roads and then take the money from somewhere else? That is a ridiculous statement.”
There you have it, Save Jerseyans.
Translated: “The problem with Trenton isn’t Trenton, but that the people we “serve” aren’t sending us enough money.”
The man has balls, I’ll grant him that much. He also hates math. Study after study recognizes New Jersey as the worst (orsecond to worst) state for taxes in the entire country, a quantifiable fact further substantiated by a no-less-quantifiable herd of taxpayers fleeing New Jersey for other states. There’s a several mile traffic jam of moving vans heading west on I-80! And South on I-95. And Vince is worried about where we’re going to get the money for roads which no one can afford to drive…
So somehow, magically, we’re going to make New Jersey better for businesses, and families, by making it less affordable to live (and drive) here. #PrietoLogic! Which is apparently logic neutral.
And he can’t find ANYTHING he’d like to cut from the budget. Nothing. Not in a state notorious for no-show jobs, pension abuse, redundant departments, ponderous layers of bureaucracy and a school funding formula – where most of your property tax increase go – that spends $20k+ on urban education, per child, with nothing to show for it.
Look: everyone agrees the roads need to fixed. But we’veproposed alternatives to higher taxes including reducing the cost of maintaining our roads (which is – surprise! – also the highest in the nation) because, unlike the Speaker’s Assembly caucus, our Garden State businesses and families have no choice but to cut their budgets when times are tough. No cable next month! Less eating out. Less shifts at the shop. Etc. and so on.
Prieto doesn’t care. ‘Cause he doesn’t get it. The few Democrats who do get it are too afraid – or bought off – by the Super PAC backers to care. Does anyone honestly believe the Dems who just won upsets riding NJEA Super PAC cash to victoryare now going to be independent of the public sector unions?
https://savejersey.com/2015/11/prieto-assembly-democrat-new-jersey-gas-tax/